The Pentagon claims that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin could not reach his Chinese counterpart shortly after an American fighter jet shot down a craft Beijing says was a weather balloon. A Department official said Chinese officials refusing to take calls on a bilateral hotline was "dangerous." Last week, Secretary of State Antony Blinked candled a planned meeting with the Chinese foreign minister after a balloon was spotted in American skies.
According to the Pentagon, Austin placed a call to Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe shortly after an F-22 shot down a Chinese craft over the Atlantic Ocean. Austin attempted to reach Wei on a bilateral hotline established between the US and China.
Chinese Defense Ministry Spokesman Tan Kefei explained on Thursday that Beijing did decline the call and the US was waging an "information war." "Given that this irresponsible and seriously erroneous approach by the US did not create a proper atmosphere for dialogue and exchanges between the two militaries, China did not accept the US proposal on the phone call," he said.
He continued, "the US claims that the balloon is part of the so-called aircraft fleet. I don’t know about it. I think it may be part of the US information war against China."
Washington being upset with Beijing for being unavailable for talks is ironic as last week, America’s top diplomat scrapped high-level meetings in China. The State Department claimed it did not want Blinken’s meeting with China’s foreign minister, and potential Chinese President Xi Jinping, to be dominated by conversations about the balloon.
Assistant Secretary for Defense Ely Ratner told Congress Thursday that Beijing’s refusal to take the hotline call was "dangerous." "That’s really dangerous." He continued, And unfortunately, to date, the PLA is not answering that call."
American defense officials said the craft did not present a military threat and would be unable to collect data that Beijing cannot obtain with low-earth orbit satellites. China claimed the aircraft was a weather balloon for scientific purposes. Beijing said it regretted the balloon drifted off course.
President Joe Biden continued to downplay the event this week. On Thursday, the president stated it was "not a major breach." "It’s not a major breach. Look, the total amount of intelligence gathering that’s going on by every country around the world is overwhelming," Biden asserted in an interview.
Still, the presence of the balloon allowed many politicians and pundits to claim China was threatening Americans. On Thursday, the US House unanimously passed a resolution that condemned China for a "brazen violation" of US sovereignty. The legislation further rebuked Beijing for attempting to deceive the international community about the true purpose of its "intelligence collection campaigns."
On Wednesday, the Pentagon doubled down on its claim that the balloon was a spycraft but did not provide the American people with evidence. "The was not for civilian purposes, we are 100% clear on that," Department of Defense Spokesperson General Pat Ryder said.
On Friday, China responded sharply to the resolution. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning claimed the legislation was "political manipulation." "The resolution by the U.S. Congress was purely political manipulation and hyping up," he said.
Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com, news editor of the Libertarian Institute, and co-host of Conflicts of Interest.
Heard a rumor that the Chinese figured it was a robo call from the American police officers association looking for money. We get two or three calls from them a week. Their number is 1-800-SERVICE, in case the Chinese are reading this…
Added: You’re not going to believe this folks, but we just got a call from 1-800-SERVICE! Needless to say, we followed our own advice to the Chinese and did not answer 😉
😂
The people running the US are acting desperate.
.I read the official statements of people in power, and I read the comments of KH, realizing that at least a third of the nation are 100% in agreement with him, with the main criticism possibly being that he is not aggressive enough.
The KH comments highlight the divisions in the US that are getting worse, not better. Reports such as this one highlight the fact that the people at the top are clueless, and thus are lashing out at anything they can think of.
In another article, it turns out that the big tank force that we are sending is 20 in a few months, 80 more by the end of the year, and 100 next year. I really hope that this is a lie, and that the REAL numbers are 200, 800, and 1000. NATO outspends Russia by more than 10 to 1, the ‘not spending enough Europeans’ outspend Russia by more than 2 to 1, and after a year this is what this buys???
If the goal is to make us seem divided, incompetent, and corrupt for the purpose of making Russia overconfident, it is working. The good news is that they are focusing on only taking lands that they can rebuild. This HUGELY reduces what they would get stuck with controlling. It also highlights that territories that they take over will be MUCH better off than how we left Iraq and Afghanistan.
Perhaps they didn’t want to hear a bunch of lies after we shot down of their weather balloons after they acknowledged and apologized and continue to ratchet up tensions on every media platform? The war machines are roaring.
Shoot first, talk later. Logical fot our Secretary of War,
If Austin really wanted to talk to the Chinese, he would have called before the US shot down the balloon. Calling them afterwards was just infantile gloating.
US would have misquoted what was said so why waste time talking to Austin when the Chinese would have to spend even more time trying to correct was the Pentagon claim was said.
US is upset? I did not me-too has made it into diplomatic language! A new category of victimhood!
The Americans should reflect on what happened in Korea Vietnam , they might just think twice before they take on the Chinese again.
Aw. The Amerikkkan regime was “upset”.
And certainly we do nothing to “upset” others , the fine upstanding nation that we are.
I don’t know what “f*ck you” is in Chinese, but those are the words I hope Xi tells our Cadaver-in-Chief.
Yawn….I think I will have some coffee and a snack.
Perhaps they will talk, after they retaliate.
Timing matters, and that is how we timed our call, shoot first, then call to say something insulting about it.